


I Could See The Earth Go On For Miles

by rib_rung



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Boys Kissing, Childhood Friends, Confessions, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, One Shot, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29250978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rib_rung/pseuds/rib_rung
Summary: Oh, to feel infinite. No end to the beach; no end to this dizzying pull between the slips of rib; another day to come after the next; a hand to hold.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	I Could See The Earth Go On For Miles

_Do you remember? That day on the beach?_   
_When you had me racing through the sand? Throwing away all sticky pretence of maturity and reverting to those years fading with nostalgia. Just asking me to follow, asking me to see what would happen next, revelling in those last grips of childhood._

“Come on! Come on Iwa-chan!”

Oikawa curls his fingers tighter in between the gaps of Hajime’s knuckles, lurching his body forward and pulling the other boy over the last rugged stone.

The purpled bruises on Hajime’s palm twinge under Tooru’s grip, but he ignores the throb and instead lets a delighted grin unfold on his sun kissed face; his teeth glinting in the hazy light. He turns towards the sea stretching out in-front of them, waves crashing into the shoreline and foam reaching out with pale arms to brush against their toes.

“Dumbass Oikawa,” he laughs, the words tripping out of his mouth with giddy exuberance. “You forget that, if I was actually trying, I’d be leagues ahead of you already.”

The light-stained beach; deserted and balmy.

Tooru’s hand is sweaty and solid linked between his own fingers, slender and familiar in a way he doesn’t want to admit.

A scoff shakes free from his throat, a look of fake disbelief exaggerated on Oikawa’s face.

“Race me then, all the way to our spot, if you think you’re so high and mighty,” he hisses, with an anticipatory crook of his knee and a foot sliding through the pale sand.

_Our spot._

Eyes creased under that soaring feeling in his chest, Hajime swings melded hands and bumps them into Oikawa’s thigh; a sly smile taking his lips up into a thin curve.

“Well?”

And a taunting voice sets him sprinting through the heady air; black hair flying and heels sinking into the shifting softness beneath them.

The heat of the sun shimmering back up from the ground burns his soles, used as they are to baked pavements and grit.

“Shit!” Oikawa lets tumble out between bared teeth, a shock down his spine sending a leg flying forwards in pursuit of the other boy.

_Oh, to feel infinite. No end to the beach; no end to this dizzying pull between the slips of rib; another day to come after the next; a hand to hold._

The pair kick up sand in their haste, brown flats oozing water under the steady slap of feet, solidifying and fading back into grain.

Iwaizumi tilts his head back, grinning a wide eyed challenge when he sees Oikawa gaining on him; legs a blur and arms in tandem.

The minutes pass with jubilant yells, stumbling down the beach with quick feet and a hasty tingling in their fingers and toes.

He should definitely care more when Tooru beats him, but watching him bend over to rest his hands on scarred knees overwhelms the potential for any other emotion.

He tilts his head, eying Iwaizumi with barely hidden affection.

“See? You- do need me to pull you along,” Oikawa pants out between heaving breaths, warm and billowing on his shirt. A playful frown presses his eyebrows together, and hair hangs limply over his face.  
“Asserting my dominance over Iwa-chan one - “ a tired pause “-race at a time!”

He raises his head and pumps one triumphant fist into the air, the frantic pace of his breath slowing down, returning to an easy rhythm.

But Iwaizumi has crept up to him in his blind victory, and a hiccup of an inhale is cut short when he knocks Tooru sideways and leaves him stumbling to regain even footing.

“Shitty-kawa,” the shorter grouses, eyes on the swirling sea and a lightness seeping up from his heart and into the thump of blood through his veins.

_I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else._

Tooru sighs with an upward tilt of his mouth, lowering his face to hide his smile.

The two of them stand, twin figures, watching the ripple of the waves for what feels like an eternity; the inwards and outwards pull of the ocean transfixing even Oikawa’s usual messiness.

A single bird flies from one side of their periphery to the next, swooping down low on the faded horizon before tipping its wings forwards and continuing onwards in an upwards crest.

The heat-hazed disc of the sky is dipping lower and lower, and Iwaizumi is just about to choke out some rambling speech about the shitty film they watched last night when-

“We- we should go swimming,” pipes up a hesitant voice from besides him.

Movement from Oikawa prompts Hajime to spin around to face him - only to see Tooru twisting out of his shirt and shucking it onto the sand.

A thickness rising in the back of Hajime’s throat makes him suddenly glad for his overgrown hair hanging over his eyes and obscuring his view.

_Liking you had come easy. It was a natural progression: a gentle growth from childhood friendship into something... more. But it was then, on that hazy summer’s evening, that it all came crashing down around me._

Iwaizumi was reduced to taking a hesitant step backwards, pushing down the blush in his cheeks and staring resolutely into the water. _Fuck_.

The thudding of his heart, rattling his ribs, responsible for the warmth behind his eyes and the pulse behind his knees, serves as the only marker of time.

Tooru walks towards the water, a hand tangled in his brown hair and swimming trunks hanging low on his hips.

At this point, he can’t even use looking at the sea anymore as a tenuous excuse. Not with Tooru’s bared back directly in his field of vision; not with a shoulder turning towards him, turning, turning, turning-

“Are you coming or are you gonna stand there gaping all day?”

_He knows how to deal with this, this is Oikawa. Oikawa. He’s always like this._

“R-right,” Hajime brings his hands in front of his stomach, fiddling with the material of his shirt, “Impatient as always, I see?”

“Meanie.”

Curses begin to bounce around Iwaizumi’s head at his own ineptitudes, and with a final snap, he breathes in harshly and rips the offending item of clothing over his head, shaking his arms out.

_‘Thousands of times, thousands of times,” he thinks to himself, “we’ve done this thousands of times.”_

Hajime stumbles towards the break of the water, eyes peeking up through eyelashes to sneak a look at Oikawa, who is currently bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, buoyed by the warm water and waiting for Iwaizumi to-

“Hurry up already!”

_Why. Why. Why. Why._

One step forwards, the hot soles of his feet calmed by the wash of the sea. Another, and in a high flood of water, Oikawa is flung under a rogue wave, his arms flailing and salt water stinging his eyes.

A painful snort breaches Hajime’s throat. _This idiot. I shouldn’t be worrying._

Oikawa resurfaces with the look of a cat coming through the door out of a sudden rainstorm: wet and disparaged. His disgruntled expression and sopping wet hair raise a laugh from Hajime; moving upwards and upwards until all he can see is Oikawa splashing around in the water, and the laughter keeps coming, shaking his stomach.

“Stop fucking laughing at me Iwa-chan! Even with my head underwater I can hear you giggling to yourself,” Oikawa yells, somehow managing to force out words between wheezes.

“Don’t accidentally drown yourself before I even get out there Shitty-Kawa,” Iwaizumi laughs.

Finally, he has the courage to wade completely into the sea, until he’s stood next to a sputtering Oikawa and his limbs are thrown about carelessly by the rising tide. They’re both up to their collarbones in the water, and this far out, the waxing sky arches over them in a wide, dusky cover.

Tooru is still coughing next to him, arms underneath the surface, keeping himself afloat and shoulders brushing up against Hajime’s.

“But seriously, you okay?”

Another sputter.

“Yeah, no thanks to the stupid sea,” Tooru breathes out, a rare self-deprecating smile creasing his lips.

Iwazumi grins, a wide and dimpled one, and runs his hands through the salty water, testing the resistance against splayed out fingers. He stares down into the clear water, watching their legs sway and shorts billow in the strong currents.

It was nice, just soaking in the open horizon and endless miles between shore and the next country. Between endless hours of volleyball practise and interspersed study sessions (which were mainly ruined by Oikawa’s whining), the two of them didn’t really get much time for themselves in this way; acting as if they were still a pair of kids running around with no responsibility.

A lot had changed since then.

The waves threw both of them backwards and forwards in the currents, until Oikawa fell forwards and eventually found himself pressed against Hajime in a way that the latter couldn’t tell was intentional or not.

That god-awful blush was rising up again, creeping up his neck and staining his cheeks a colour that he hoped wasn’t as noticeable as he felt it was.

Iwaizumi snapped his head up from his downward gaze at the abrupt feeling of Oikawa’s hands steadying himself on his shoulders, warm fingers wrapped around the tops of his collarbones and pressing white ovals into his back.

Usually, it would have meant nothing. It would have been two friends leaning on each other for support, as normal as anything; but Iwazumi felt as if every single nerve in his body was alight at the same time - the world turning into something all too clear and yet too narrowed down and fuzzy at the same time. It was a contradiction that didn’t make sense in Iwaizumi’s head, but neither did anything at the moment.

Nevertheless, it forced a heavy breath out of Iwazumi’s lungs, the warmth of it trapped between their bodies. It was colder out here, with the sun dimming beneath the horizon and the salt water drying crusted on their skin. It filled Hajime with the dangerous urge to wrap his arms around Tooru, just as they had done when they were younger, to hold him pressed tight against him and to finally tell him what he’d needed to say ever since he’d known what real attraction even meant.

Instead, Hajime settled for tilting his face up and looking into Oikawa’s open expression - faced with something shockingly vulnerable and unlike his usual confidence.

So caught up in his own thoughts, it was only then that Iwaizumi realised Oikawa had begun to rub gentle circles into his shoulders with both thumbs; a comforting motion that caused Iwaizumi to simultaneously relax and blush even more.

“And you asked if _I_ was okay, when you’re obviously suffering from some long, drawn out disease - what with your constant blushing and all.”

Oikawa’s previously open expression morphed into something more sinister; his lips curving upwards and a glint reaching his eyes.

“You couldn’t possibly, be _enjoying_ looking into my admittedly _gorgeous_ eyes,-” he paused, feigning shock, “-could you Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi’s heart stopped in his chest, and the water that previously cradled him began to feel like a chilled ice bath. Oikawa was still staring at him with that same expression; as if he expected an answer, a solid one, as if he could see right through Iwaizumi.

_But he always had done, hadn’t he? He’s always been able to tell what you’re feeling before you’re even conscious of it. So why would this be any different?_

And it’s not like Oikawa was wrong, about his eyes and his face.

The last sliver of sun lined the space between the sea and the open sky; and the half-crescent moon hanging in the dusk was quickly becoming the biggest source of light.  
The pale, silvered light lit up the cooling water with mauve opalescence; and it cast a similar effect on Tooru’s face too. The previously harsh lines of his face softened, and the light made it seem as if the creases between his brows had been faded and smoothed out.

Or maybe that wasn’t just the light playing tricks - seeing how Oikawa was looking at him.

“S-something like that,” Iwaizumi whispered, with an downward tilt of intonation.

The pair of them must have struck an odd sight, swaying in the waves together, stationary apart from the gentle blink of their eyes and the subtle curves of Oikawa’s fingers on Iwaizumi’s back.

The strings in Iwaizumi’s chest pulled tight.

The hush of the waves cresting against the moonlit sand was the only sound; but as calming as it was, Hajime could only think about Oikawa’s gaze settling on his sun-chapped lips, and how his heart and throat ached with a frightening intensity.

“-Yeah...” Tooru leaned closer into Iwaizumi’s space, and time seemed to slow to a consistency of molasses, falling through fingers with a sweet and treacly crawl.  
“Something like that,” he let out in a hush of breath next to Iwazumi’s mouth, surprisingly gentle.

Mustering up some pocket of courage hidden behind a rib or perhaps beneath the gentle press of Tooru’s fingertips, Iwaizumi closed the distance between them, and then their lips were touching, brushing against each other and imperfect in the way that summertime makes one. Feeling a deep and heady thrill, Iwaizumi lifted his hands up to Tooru’s bare waist; cupping underneath the delicate rib cage and feeling the soft skin of his stomach underneath rough and calloused palms. Oikawa returned the gesture by slinging his arms all the way over his shoulders, cradling the back of Iwaizumi’s head in the dip of his two palms.

The corners of Hajime’s mouth curved upwards, his chest filling with unprecedented warmth and the back of his eyes prickling. It was fumbling, and messy, and inexperienced, and the two would probably laugh about it later over another bad movie and bag of shop-bought chocolate, but that was the point. There would always be a tomorrow. There would always be a next time; an infinity.

_Your lips had always soothed mine, from that moment on._


End file.
